Possible NFL lockout in 2011 could disrupt this season, too

The Heat Index just watched another great slate of Sunday NFL action, but he's feeling the Monday morning quarterback blues.

What could rain on the pigskin parade, you ask?

Well, it's the ongoing threat of an NFL lockout in 2011 and how life as we know it will grind to a halt if there's no football next year.

But wait. It gets worse.

The threat of a lockout next year is almost assured to throw some wacky wrenches into this season.

Why? The Heat Index has spoken with his NFL sources and was reminded that as the 2010 schedule gets into its later months, there likely will be players who might not be willing to lay it all on the line as a possible lockout looms.

There might be some who choose not to play. They could be players who are nursing injuries. They could be players on teams with no chance to make the playoffs. And they most certainly could be players who don't have a contract for next season and beyond.

Former NFL defensive back Rodney Harrison, now an NBC analyst, is convinced that player solidarity isn't just going to come in the form of pregame index-finger salutes.

"The word I get from a few players already is if they're in a situation where their contract is up and they've managed to get through 13 weeks and all of a sudden they have a little contusion on their knee or a sprained ankle or bruised ribs, they're not going out there if they don't have their money," Harrison said during a recent conference call with NFL writers.

"It's just plain and simple. . . . They're not going to take a chance of stepping on the field and getting hurt. You're going to see a lot more guys sitting out, not really playing that last stretch of four or five games."

The thought of that is about as appetizing as shoe polish on pancakes.

But you can just see it happening, can't you? It was bad enough, especially for fantasy-football freaks, when star players were held out of games late in the regular season to keep them fresh for the playoffs.

Now we're going to have to start monitoring those injury reports a lot more closely. But is it fair for us to have to start questioning players' hearts and their motives?

What's the final month of this season going to be like if players start staging their own private strikes?

It's enough to make the stomach turn, but former NFL coach Tony Dungy can see it coming, too.

"I do think it's going to have a great effect coming down the stretch if this thing is not settled," he said. "You're going to have players saying, 'Hey, what's going to happen to me in 2011? I'm a little bit nicked up, should I go out there? I don't have a contract for next year.' "

Dungy said the panic could spread to coaching staffs, because most assistants won't collect a paycheck without a season. He predicts many coaches will be making job inquiries with college programs, further disrupting the 2010 season.

And we're not even to 2011.

The league's collective-bargaining agreement with the players' union is set to expire March 1, and there has been no movement in recent labor talks.

Players for four teams - the Colts, Cowboys, Saints and Eagles - have unanimously voted to decertify the union should there be a lockout. Decertification would allow union attorneys to sue the league under antitrust laws. Other teams are expected to hold similar votes.

Union chief DeMaurice Smith said a lockout is coming. He was asked this year what the chances of a lockout are on a scale from 1 to 10. He didn't answer with a 7, 8 or a 9. He said "14."

So the first work stoppage in the NFL since the players' strike in 1987 is lurking.

Hopefully the battle between billionaires and millionaires gets resolved soon. There are many issues that need to be addressed, including Commissioner Roger Goodell's intentions for an 18-game regular-season, an owner-imposed rookie salary cap, and the future of revenue sharing from a league that generated $9 billion in 2009.

If labor talks drag deep into the summer, which many sources predict, the 2011 season is in jeopardy.